Cabinet 16: Ernie Webbers Scrapbooks

Malaysia in Pamaero Library Scrapbook, [1950-70].

Almost all of Webbers scrapbooks have his Pamaero Library label on the cover. Occasionally it is the shorter Maero, and in this instance ball-point markings top left (B[urma] Malaya Siam I/C [Indo-China]), with a map depicting South East Asia. The contents of this particular volume are disturbing. Webber has compiled items on latter-day bandits blowing up trains in Malaya, and the atrocities surrounding the Burma (now Myanmar)-Siam (now Thailand) railway, including the well-known bridge on the River Kwai. On the conditions and fate faced by many when this line was built, an unknown news correspondent has calculated that there were 304 corpses every mile; a dead man every 17ft 6 inches. The newspaper account pasted in is headed Line of Death